Kelly Sotherton finished second at the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge in Talence, France at the weekend, beating Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska (Ukraine) into third place, in a competition won by USA’s Hyleas Fountain. Fountain scored 6479, with Sotherton just 40 points adrift and Dobrynksa another 10 points back. 

“It’s nice to get scalps.” Said Sotherton. “But she (Dobrynska) is still crossing the line here as Olympic champion. Obviously I’d rather have finished fourth here and win in Beijing. But it has been a good weekend. I’m really pleased with my shot put. We have been working a few different things and they came off.

“I also ran my 200m so much better and I have consolidated on the javelin too. Things are coming together. It’s nice to finish the season on the podium. It’s been hard in recent weeks. Since Gateshead, there has nobody at the training track. But it worked out well. I have never scored above 6300 at this point of the season before.

“I have got one more race left, a 400m in Shanghai. After that I will take a break and then focus on winter training for the indoors. I have finished second at too many indoor championships, twice at the Europeans and once at the Worlds, so it would be nice to win one.” The European Indoor Championships take place in Turin, Italy next March.

SOTHERTON EVENT-BY-EVENT BREAKDOWN

100m H: 13.29 (1.2m/s)

HJ: 1.82m

SP: 14.46m

200m: 23.46 (+3.5m/s)

LJ: 6.21m

JT: 36.88m

800m: 2:09.30

Total: 6439 points